Df battery life

eddyf · Oct 11, 2014

I had felt the base of my Df warming up esp during prolonged shoots. Yesterday, I set with a freshly charged battery and did a marathon shoot during a city walk.. the shots were spaced out normally, with the odd street scene here & there.. The battery was exhausted after 184 shots.

Now the manual says that it should 2900 shots with the standard lens shooting M sized images. It warns that shooting raw and using a VR lens will consume more power & reduce the 2900 capacity.

I shot raw, with L sized images and half the images were with the 70-200 f2.8 VR lens and the other half with the new special edition 50mm f1.8 lens.

The question I'm left with is.. is the additional load of the VR lens, the Large sized images and the [jpg fine + raw] sufficient to take the No. of shots down from 2900 to 184 and can the warm base of the camera be explained.

Any thoughts would be welcome

Nikonparrothead · Oct 11, 2014

I'd be worried about a defective battery.

Murray Bowles · Oct 11, 2014

I replaced my phone, and tried (but failed) to re-bond my eye-fi card with it. One thing which will kill your Df battery fast is an unhappy eye-fi card.

KSV · Oct 11, 2014

eddyf said:
I had felt the base of my Df warming up esp during prolonged shoots. Yesterday, I set with a freshly charged battery and did a marathon shoot during a city walk.. the shots were spaced out normally, with the odd street scene here & there.. The battery was exhausted after 184 shots.

Now the manual says that it should 2900 shots with the standard lens shooting M sized images. It warns that shooting raw and using a VR lens will consume more power & reduce the 2900 capacity.

I shot raw, with L sized images and half the images were with the 70-200 f2.8 VR lens and the other half with the new special edition 50mm f1.8 lens.

The question I'm left with is.. is the additional load of the VR lens, the Large sized images and the [jpg fine + raw] sufficient to take the No. of shots down from 2900 to 184 and can the warm base of the camera be explained.

Any thoughts would be welcome

I have a trip of about 3 weeks long, shoot more than 1000 pics before replacing battery. I soot mainly with Tamron 24-70 and Nikon 70-300. Both have VR and VR on both was continuously used. I always use RAW_JPG. I reckon that main killer is excessive usage of rear LCD including LV, though I reviewed each and every photos and delete quite a few on the spot. I do not believe that shoot RAW has any influence on battery life and I believe that using VR has only marginal influence.

BTW where you pulled 2900 from? AFAIK according to CIPA test it about 1400 and this is what I believe close to the truth.

Df made in Japan, however battery is chanoze origin, so I would not be surprised that battery is dodged. BTW do you have other battery? And is it original battery?

InTheMist · Oct 11, 2014

Something is wrong, you should be getting a thousand or more - or did you use live view the whole time? Or some strange accessory?

I get thousands of Raw+JPEG.

Margouillat · Oct 12, 2014

Something is wrong with your battery ! While many of the reasons stated by the other posters, do impact the original "value" of 1400 pictures per fully loaded battery, mines will get me around the 1000 mark easily with still one mark on the smallish battery meter, with moderate chimping (screen is off as a basis), and mixed use with some VR lenses and non-VR's !

When I bought the camera I did buy (as always) two sets of original batteries, that I rotate in use. On my precedent cameras (D700, D3x) I rotated with three batteries, but I find that with the Df, two is quite sufficient

Your very low value of shots per charge seems to indicate a problem either with the battery (faulty), the charger, or even the camera (contacts somewhere, wifi card, etc.). I haven't felt a heating of the battery chamber, even in long uses !

I would take the camera with the battery to a Nikon repair shop to have them verify the whole set...

eddyf · Oct 12, 2014

Thank you for your comment. I saw the 2900 in the supplied manual. It had the 1400 and also mentioned the 2900, which it said was with the 50mm lens, medium sized jpg images.

KSV · Oct 12, 2014

eddyf said:
Thank you for your comment. I saw the 2900 in the supplied manual. It had the 1400 and also mentioned the 2900, which it said was with the 50mm lens, medium sized jpg images.

On what page?

Hugo First · Oct 12, 2014

definitely a bad battery.

mais51 · Oct 12, 2014

Hugo First said:
definitely a bad battery.

Unless you left the camera on live view continuously. The Df has no video so the only logical explanation is a faulty battery - like anything batteries do have fault - at least it should be under warranty. I'd try to recharge the battery once more and see how long it lasts this time if it is a faulty battery then it will behave the same as last time - I also send the charger to Nikon for a test - you may also have a faulty charger.

chuxter · Oct 12, 2014

Does the Df have a battery status screen in the menus? Charge the battery and immediately see what the battery status is...

cdwnv · Oct 12, 2014

The battery is definitely not covered under warranty. I too had a battery issue . I called Nikon and they said the battery is not covered.

M35G35 · Oct 12, 2014

I had the same situation with my Df and poor battery life. I got somewhere around 220 photos on the battery. I did have the gps on (di-gps brand) and used the AF. I used live view for a few seconds. I figured that I should have been up around 700-800 shots and I was not even close. I did notice the battery compartment was warm, also. Which leads me to think the battery is defective.

xtm · Oct 12, 2014

Check the battery compartment - there could be something lodged there that's shorting out the battery and causing it to heat up.

NCB · Oct 13, 2014

If you use the rear screen at all it will eat into battery life. I have the screen set to review the pic after taking the shot, and also I flip through the shots on occasions to get another look (it can be up to a couple of weeks before I get to process them on a PC), and it does make a huge difference to battery life (on any camera).

eddyf · Oct 13, 2014

The Nkon Df manual quotes the 1400 and the Nikon Standard at 2900 on page 367.
I disconnect the charger when the light stops blinking. I'll try to leave it longer & see if it makes a difference. It seems to be a standard grey Nikon original battery.

eddyf · Oct 13, 2014

Oh dear. Thank you

eddyf · Oct 13, 2014

Thank you

eddyf · Oct 13, 2014

Come to think of it Live View was used a few times. But a battery & charger test would be good yes

KSV · Oct 13, 2014

eddyf said:
The Nkon Df manual quotes the 1400 and the Nikon Standard at 2900 on page 367.
I disconnect the charger when the light stops blinking. I'll try to leave it longer & see if it makes a difference. It seems to be a standard grey Nikon original battery.

Thanks for that - strange how I missed it. Anyway those 2900 absolutely unrealistic - 1400 is more for real. This is what I having anyway - just about 1000, like 1100-1200. Definitely could be better with small non-VR prime and modest usage of review. But I still very skeptical about 2900.

I do not believe that overcharging battery helps. Does it says "Nikon" on battery? I.e. it is genuine or third-party one?

Df battery life

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